wakebird » Elevation

Parables Recap Video

wakebird — Wed, 20 May 2009 13:50:03 +0000

We just finished our Parables series and Tammy Harris and Tim Gold made an awesome recap video of the whole series. I was bummed to miss it in the service last Sunday but loved seeing it finally yesterday. I think it is so helpful for myself and the people of Calvary Church to be reminded of what we learned since January 4th. It helped me remember a couple things. I was just bummed my “rib-eye steak” comments didn’t make the cut.

Parables – Mysteries of the Kingdom from Calvary Arts & Media on Vimeo.

Preaching Text-Fessional

wakebird — Sun, 05 Aug 2007 23:13:00 +0000

I don’t feel like making a video confessional and Victor was talking about worship text-fessionals on his blog so I liked the idea. Plus, I only watch people’s videos about half the time.

I enjoyed this morning in the Elevation service at Calvary Church very much. We were talking about the Baptism of the Holy Spirit in our Lost in Translation series. This is a recurring series where we have a small amount of messages on an area of God, theology, or Scripture than tend to get confused or “Lost in Translation.” I won’t get into details of my points here, but the key thing is that we are baptized “in the Holy Spirit” at conversion and we are all baptized “into the Body of Christ” (1 Corinthians 12:13). So we are radically changed for a purpose – to serve others as a member of the body.

I felt a good connection and energy in the room. I think I was communicating pretty clearly and with a good dynamic of speaking strong with conviction and then conversationally talking as well. Something I talked about was believing what is already true about ourself – that we have the Holy Spirit within us and we are new creations. I could have explained more about how we can believe that even when life is hard or when we still sin, etc.

We had a cool response station where people came up and dipped a cloth into dye to represent spirit baptism and then they placed that dyed cloth onto a larger canvas which represented the body of Christ. Everybody seemed pretty into it. Anna Gold and Nicole Gniffke helped make it happen. Here’s a picture of it from my phone.

Victor and the band did a great job. As much as I give that guy a hard time and my job is to keep pushing him to continue to grow, he has the most rich, easy to sing with, beautiful voice of any worship leader I know. (Did I just say beautiful???). Victor – you are really good at what you do! Keep giving God the glory, but I love you man.

Giving Change

wakebird — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 22:29:00 +0000

We changed how offering is done in our Elevation service. We have always had buckets available for giving at our 8 stations during the second set of worship songs, but we also had to pass the offering bags because leadership just wasn’t ready to not have a bag passed. We were finally able to help them understand (they were very reasonable and had understandable reasons for wanting to pass the bags, we are a 75 year old church so these things take time). Then we had a high schooler want to help the church with his Eagle Scout project and so we had him design, build, and install cool giving boxes to put next to the exit doors. We have two boxes for every exit door. we also just started online giving through our website. Give now if you would like:)! So now giving only takes place at the stations or when people leave. We do not pass a plate, bag, basket, or bucket!! I’m stoked. I think this will really help with visitors and cheerful giving.

Any other ideas?

Easter Debrief

wakebird — Mon, 09 Apr 2007 03:42:00 +0000

1. Dinner at Bea’s parents on Saturday night. Yes, we did eat the Roast Lamb (of God) and yes I did make too many awkward jokes about it. And if you’re wondering, it did resurrect this morning. I’m still not into lamb. I like tenderloin of lamb, just not leg or chop.

2. First Ever (at least for several years) Student Ministry Easter Service at Calvary Church. It was awesome!! The band rocked out some great songs like Salvation is Here, Mighty to Save, Christ the Lord is Risen Today, and Nothing But the Blood. Matt Doan and Melissa Brosch (doesn’t have a blog but should) talked about the scapegoat and brought in a live goat. It’s always fun to have live animals in church. I talked about the Empty Tomb and my experiences in Israel. I read 1 Corinthians 15 from The Message and it has a cool verse (12) that says, “And I’m not going to let that grace go to waste.” I like that phrase. I’m actually pretty unclear of what that translates directly from, but I still like it. It definitely preached. There were a ton of kids because we combined JH, HS, and College. It’s fun to have that kind of energy in the room.

3. Elevation Easter Service. We had great worship with many similar songs. Salvation is Here, Mighty to Save, Christ the Lord is Risen Today, Marvelous Light. They did The Easter Song (Hear the Bells Ringing) as a pre-service song, but unfortunately is was not in the 80s Glam Metal style that I suggested. I’m sure Victor will post more on the music. Then we had these cool Digital Short Films that we made and Pastor Dave aka P-Diddy preached out of them. Chad Ashton did a ton of the work on the videos and he is a stud. They looked cool. The audio voiceover was overly theatrical and that kind of bummed me out, but they were visually awesome. The service ended with everybody pretty pumped up on worship and all that. A good morning overall.

4. Now we are packing and getting ready to leave in the morning. The blogging might be a bit sporadic over the next week.

He is Risen…He is Risen INDEED!!

Church Today

wakebird — Sun, 25 Mar 2007 21:32:00 +0000

Today was an awesome and kinda different church service at Elevation at Calvary Church. The band was acoustic with just two acoustic guitars, bass, and a cajon (box). It sounded good. There was one song and then we did baby dedications. We do baby dedications differently than we used to. Three couples came on stage with their babies and then P-Diddy (that’s what we all call Pastor Dave) introduced them and prayed for them collectively while the congregation stood and reached out their hands towards the babies joining in the prayer. Then the three families come down off the stage and are surrounded by pastors and elders who pray for them while the congregation sings another song. Then we sang one more song and entered into our Family Business section (announcement type stuff). We showed a “trailer” of the digital short film we are creating for Easter, we introduced our new Women’s Ministry Co-Directors, and then P-Diddy shared about his mom’s death last Thursday and we prayed for him. Then Brent spoke on Luke 10-38-42 which is the Mary/Martha story. Brent did a great job and really pointed out that the ministry that Martha was doing wasn’t bad, but how even good things can distract us from sitting with Jesus. Then, instead of singing more and having the stations, we spent 20 minutes in silence “sitting with Jesus.” Then people just left as they were ready. It was pretty cool.

Then we had lunch with Kevin and Michelle at Cafe Lucca in Old Towne Orange. I miss that part of town pretty bad.